News from the Committee to Protect Journalists, May 2014

CPJ board member María Teresa Ronderos
and CPJ Senior Program Coordinator Carlos Lauría traveled to Brasilia this
month to launch a new special report, "Halftime
for the Brazilian press," and met with Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, as
well as other high-level government officials. CPJ also presented President Rousseff
with the report's recommendations.

Brazil is home to a vibrant investigative press, but
journalists are murdered regularly and their killers go free, CPJ's report
found. Brazil is the 11th deadliest country in the world for journalists, and
at least 10 have been killed in direct reprisal for their work since President
Rousseff came to power, CPJ research shows.

CPJ spoke to President Rousseff as well as three ministers--Justice
Minister José Eduardo Cardozo, Human Rights Minister Ideli Salvatti, and Social
Communications Minister Thomas Traumann, the president's spokesman--about the findings
of the report. Ricardo Uceda, executive director of the regional press group
IPYS, and Fernando Rodrigues, a prominent Brazilian journalist and founding
member of press freedom group ABRAJI, were also present in the meetings.

"The federal government is fully committed
to continue fighting against impunity in cases of killed journalists," President
Rousseff told the CPJ delegation. She pledged to address the issue of
impunity in journalist murders in her speech before the U.N. General Assembly
in September.

The Brazilian media are subject to legal harassment, and a
new law on Internet rights contains flaws that could harm free expression, CPJ's
report also found.

President Rousseff told the delegation that her
administration would implement a mechanism to prevent deadly attacks, protect
journalists at risk, and support legislative efforts to federalize crimes
against freedom of expression.

Defending press
freedom in Iraqi Kurdistan

A CPJ mission to Iraqi Kurdistan this month pressed the
government to bring to justice the masterminds behind the murders of two
journalists and to fully implement laws to help the local press. In meetings with
senior officials, including Iraq's first lady, Hero Talabani, CPJ Deputy
Director Robert Mahoney and CPJ Middle East and North Africa Program Coordinator
Sherif Mansour raised the cases of Sardasht Osman and Kawa Garmyane, two
journalists killed in recent years in relation to their work.

"The government, from the president to the prime minister, takes
those cases seriously and will do everything it can to ensure justice,"
Interior Minister Karim Sinjari told CPJ.

During the four-day mission, officials acknowledged that the
Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) had fallen short on commitments to improve
the climate of press freedom and agreed to follow up on the recommendations
laid out in CPJ's April report, "Mountain
of impunity looms over Iraqi Kurdistan," which called on the KRG to
investigate unsolved attacks on journalists and hold those responsible to
account.

CPJ also met with Sherwan Haidary, minister of justice, and
Omed Muhsin, spokesman for the Judiciary Council, and raised concerns about
threats against journalists that remain uninvestigated. Both officials agreed to
work with the local journalists' syndicate to help journalists under threat.

The report was written by Namo Abdulla, Washington Bureau
Chief for the Kurdistan news channel Rudaw and the host of a weekly,
English-language political talk show called "Inside America." He is based in
Washington.

Turkish journalist
released from prison

CPJ welcomed the release
from jail this month of Fusün Erdoğan, a jailed Turkish journalist who the
organization highlighted in its "Ten
journalists to free from prison" report, published in the run-up to World
Press Freedom Day. When the journalist was released on May 8, she tweeted:
"Many thanks to the whole @pressfreedom team for your efforts for #PressFreedom
in #Turkey!"

Erdoğan, the former general manager of Özgür Radyo, spent
more than seven years in prison before being convicted on anti-state charges. She
was sentenced to a life term in late 2013.

Turkish authorities
have released multiple journalists from jail in the past few months. With the
release of at least five other journalists in mid-May, Turkey is holding at
least 11 journalists in jail. When CPJ conducted its most recent prison census in December
2013, the country was holding at least 40 journalists behind bars.

Assisting refugee
journalists in Kenya

CPJ joined RSF and the Rory Peck Trust in a public letter
calling on Joseph Ole Lenku, Kenya's secretary of interior, to provide clarity
on the government's refugee policy and to exempt journalists from forced relocation
to refugee camps. The letter was covered in a number of regional media outlets,
including All Africa,
Pambazuka News,
and PanaPress.

After the letter was published, Somali journalist Mahad Omar
was released from a refugee camp, where he had been forcibly relocated, and
allowed to return to Nairobi.

Development in focus
on Press Freedom Day

World Press Freedom Day marked a small but important step in
the process to secure press freedom and the right to independent media as part
of the U.N.'s Post-2015 development agenda. In a speech on May 1, U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said, "On this World Press Freedom Day, I call on
all governments, societies and individuals to actively defend this fundamental
right as critical factors in achieving the Millennium Development Goals and
advancing the post-2015 development agenda."

The U.N. is working to devise a global post-2015 development
agenda to replace the eight Millennium Development Goals. The current goals
range from halving extreme poverty rates, halting the spread of HIV/AIDS, and
providing universal primary education, but do not include any mention of
democratic government or accountability and, thus, press freedom.

CPJ has long advocated
for the framework to address press freedom, maintaining that systems that allow
people to hold governments accountable are fundamental to achieving economic
growth, social equality, and environmental sustainability. Last month, CPJ sent
a letter
to the co-chairmen of the U.N. Open Working Group on Sustainable Development
Goals, urging them to include freedom of expression and access to information
in their post-2015 recommendations.

CPJ participated in multiple World Press Freedom events
across the globe, from Nairobi to Paris to New York. "We should not have to
endure the sad irony that in an era defined by information, the frontline
journalists who keep us informed are being killed and imprisoned in record
numbers," said CPJ Executive Director Joel Simon at a U.N. event
hosted by the International Peace Institute in New York.

CPJ's Journalist Assistance program, founded in 2001, uses
the Gene Roberts Emergency Fund to dispense grants to journalists in distress
worldwide. Through a combination of financial and non-financial support, the
program helps journalists obtain medical and legal aid; supports those who have
been forced into hiding or exile; and gives assistance to the families of
journalists who have been imprisoned or killed.